


white noise and whispers

by Meowmeowandotherhappythings



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:20:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26755699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meowmeowandotherhappythings/pseuds/Meowmeowandotherhappythings
Summary: You’ve reached Lena Luthor. Sorry I can’t get to the phone at the moment, leave a message and I’ll get back to you.BeepUh, hi…Lena? My name is Kara. Kara Danvers. I’m an archivist at the National City Library. I just started, actually, and I think I got your desk? Um, gosh sorry. Well, anyway, I just have a few questions about the system. Some of the stuff you’ve inputted is just... well, I could just use a hand understanding some of it, if you’ve got the time? Uh, call me back when you get a chance. Thanks. Bye.
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 11
Kudos: 94





	white noise and whispers

**Author's Note:**

> Based on episode 7 of the BBC Sounds podcast 'Murmurs' - it's really good, check it out! Good luck understanding this, even I'm confused at this point...

You’ve reached Lena Luthor. Sorry I can’t get to the phone at the moment, leave a message and I’ll get back to you. 

Beep

Luther? Where the hell are you? You can’t just disappear with no warning and expect to keep your job for God’s sake, that’s not how this works, I don’t care how sick your dog is or whatever else BS excuse you come back here with. You’re fired, you hear me, Luther? Come get your things when you’re finished meditating on whatever cutesy ashram you’re holed up in. 

\---

1st June;  
Am I dreaming? Am I real? I spend so much time with stories it’s hard to know what is anymore. Perhaps I’m becoming absorbed by the library. What am I? What’s happening to me?

\--

Kara is soaking. The rain is torrential and has been for the better part of three hours. The thunderstorm had woken Kara in the early hours of the morning, the hush of the rain washing the streets lulling her back to sleep just in time for her alarm to jolt her back to waking. 

There had been no hot water, so her shower had been cold and she’d spent too long hopping in and out of the spray before committing to the icy blast. Breakfast, non-negotiable of course, had taken too long also and she’d watched the bus round the corner out of sight, toast still hanging between her teeth. 

Now, then, Kara stands panting just inside the doorway of the National City Library, a puddle slowly expanding around her feet, rainwater inching ever further inside the building. She takes a deep breath, shakes like a dog, feels a smile stretch her face wide. 

She is intercepted in her approach to the desk she’d been assigned at the induction by a human body barrelling into her at high speed. Kara stumbles back but catches herself quickly. The same can’t be said of the dark-haired stranger before her whose arms go windmilling, flailing wildly so as to prevent the floor rising up to meet them. Kara sees immediately that their flapping is unlikely to save them and darts forward, steadying them by their forearms. 

The man before her matches her almost exactly in height and is grinning hugely as he thanks her, introducing himself as Winn, the tech guy, well tech and cataloguing since we’ve been down an archivist but I guess that’s what you’re here for right? So I guess I’ll be back to just the tech guy, and, like, sometimes the light-bulb changer because the janitors aren’t too good at getting up the ladders but who can blame them really? They’re not paid enough for the amount they do round here so it’s really the least I can do to change the bulbs when they need it, and sorry I don’t think I caught your name? 

‘Kara,’ says Kara, bewildered. 

‘Nice,’ says Winn, nodding, grinning, ‘So, you’re the new archivist right? Snapper said you were starting today.’ 

‘Uh, yup, that’s me. Sorry I’m a little late, the bus was too quick for me so, um, sorry I’m also dripping wet.’

Winn laughs, delighted, and quickly reassures her it’s no problem, ‘S’not like there’s any rush around here so...you’ve not missed anything being a little late. And hey, we can maybe find you a change of clothes in lost and found?’ 

Kara agrees easily before motioning to the island of desks, indicating the bag and coat she’d like to deposit first. 

‘Oh! Do you know which desk you’re at? Probably Lena’s right? So you’ll be right by me, lucky you! We’ll be desk buddies, right Kara?’

‘Uh yeah, I guess we will.’ Kara finds herself smiling at Winn, excited to be making friends already, and pleased she seems to have stumbled across a male version of herself - some people get annoyed by her rambling and stuttering but she doesn’t think she’ll have any of those problems with Winn. 

She lets him lead her over to the correct desk and spends the rest of the day complaining to him about the absolutely ancient software on the computers, shifting uncomfortably in the too-small Bee-Jees t-shirt she stole from lost and found. At least it’s dry. 

\---  
You’ve reached Lena Luthor. Sorry I can’t get to the phone at the moment, leave a message and I’ll get back to you. 

Beep

Uh, hi…Lena? My name is Kara. Kara Danvers. I’m an archivist at the National City Library. I just started, actually, and I think I got your desk? Um, gosh sorry. Well, anyway, I just have a few questions about the system. Some of the stuff you’ve inputted is just... well, I could just use a hand understanding some of it, if you’ve got the time? Uh, call me back when you get a chance. Thanks. Bye. 

\--

3rd June;  
I’m blurry. I can see it when I look at myself in the mirror. I stand, naked, in my bedroom, and I watch myself seeping into the room. Diffusing. It’s like watching my atoms disperse, one layer at a time. Is that what’s happening? Is that what this is? Entropy.

\--

The library has always been one of Kara’s favourite places. A shelter from the weather, yes, but also from the bullies at school, the teenage angst of her sister, the grief that sits solidly behind her ribs. Kara has spent countless hours amongst the shelves, running gentle fingers along the spines of all the books. They come alive beneath her touch. She imagines that she can feel them breathe with her. 

Eliza used to drop her here when she went shopping, returning hours later with bags of groceries, coaxing Kara away from the books with the promise of fresh pastries and full packages of cookies.

Sometimes, Kara would come on her own after school, looking for somewhere quiet, somewhere calm. Somehow the library feels big and small all at once, allows her space to breathe deep, even as the walls press in comfortably around her. Sometimes, more often than she likes to remember, Kara would be in tears already, fleeing the cruelty of the school corridors, running, running, running towards the safety of the bookshelves. 

Early on, when the shouting at home got too much, Kara would slip out quietly, leaving a note on the side, and walk slowly toward the tranquillity offered only in the musty old red-brick building. She’d sit and read and slip quietly back into the house in time for dinner, when everyone was too busy stuffing their mouths to keep up the yelling. 

Later, when things were better, Kara liked to bring Alex with her sometimes. They’d sit quietly, pick out books for one another and read them sitting between the shelves, or whisper together, hidden from view, out of earshot of the librarians patrolling the aisles, sorting and re-sorting. 

Eventually, life got busy. Work and friends and failed date after failed date began to take up her mornings and evenings and weekends until weeks could pass without Kara ever setting foot in the library. 

But it was fine. Kara was happy, caught up in the pace of life in the city, of having an adult job and adult friends. There were no bullies to hide from anymore, her sister was her comfort now, rather than her tormentor. The gentle comfort of the library was no longer the only thing holding her together. 

Still, there was a knot building in her chest. A thread coiling tighter, twisting harder, growing slowly, over the days and weeks and months, from a thread to a string to a rope, growing thorns, beginning to snag on her lungs, her wind-pipe. Every early morning, rushing to the office, every late night, held back while Ms Grant stayed working, every bad date, every eye roll, every tepid coffee. They stayed with her, collecting beneath her skin. These tiny inconveniences, so small she barely noticed at first, and continued not to notice for a long while. They collected like sediment, heavy and cloying and weighing her down. 

And then, one week in October, everything went to shit. 

On the Monday night, Cat kept her in the office late. By the time she made it to the bar where she was supposed to be meeting a guy for their third date, he was already in a corner with another girl. 

On the Tuesday, Alex cancelled sisters night for her own date and Kara ate dinner alone in the dark after the power went out across the block. 

On Wednesday, she brought Cat the wrong coffee in the morning and was solidly ignored for the rest of the day. 

On Thursday, she brought Cat the right coffee but tripped as she went to place it on the desk, drenching herself, Cat, Cat’s important-looking guest, and a number of equally important-looking bits of paper. She spent the rest of the day alphabetising the stationery cupboard. 

On Friday, three separate people called her three separate (unimaginative) coffee-mishap-related names, one person touched her butt in the elevator, four people called her ‘sweetheart’, Cat threw a stapler at her head, and Kara quit her job. 

She spent the weekend feeling sorry for herself, drowning in alcohol, ice cream and self-pity. 

Finally, on Monday, Kara went back to the library. Unemployed, eyes itching with dried tears and a lingering hangover, she stepped back into the building and felt light again. 

The synthetic bulbs were just as she remembered, the smell the same too; dust and sweat and hundreds of books waiting to be opened. On the wall, she had noticed a piece of paper blu-tacked at eye level, already curling at the corners with damp. 

Vacancy. Full-time. Apply within.

Kara had felt ready for a new beginning.

\--  
You’ve reached Lena Luthor. Sorry I can’t get to the phone at the moment, leave a message and I’ll get back to you. 

Beep

Hi, Lena. It’s Kara Danvers again. I’d really love to chat about some of the backlog here. I can see you’ve started cataloguing a few of the later Inisfallen Chronicles – they’re incredible, by the way – but um… there’s just a few gaps? I don’t know, I probably just don’t understand the system yet…it’s so much different than they were using at Catco. This is all much older and—Oh! Gosh, sorry. I just mean it’s well…yeah, older. Sorry. Anyway, give me a ring back when you can, I’d be super grateful for some pointers. 

\--

7th June;  
Perhaps it’s a leak. There was so much inside me that my body could no longer contain it. Or maybe it’s the opposite. Economy. There is nothing inside me, so why waste matter on a physical body? What is a body anyway but a vessel for the self? Or are they one and the same? Perhaps there is no soul and when I’m finished leaking, there will be nothing of me left. If that is the case, it is a slow death, but painless, and I’m thankful. 

\--

The weather stays awful for the rest of Kara’s first week, and she arrives soaked through twice more before it’s over.  
Come Friday, she carves her usual path into the library, dripping all over the floor as she goes from the front door to her desk. When she sits down a couple of raindrops fall from her nose onto the wood before her. She tries to wipe them away with her sleeve but just ends up smearing more rainwater across the surface. Giving up, she huffs, watches the water creep closer to her computer monitor. 

Winn is off, so there’s no one to laugh at her misfortune or tell her she looks like a drowned rat, and Lena Luthor still hasn’t gotten back to her about the missing files so there’s not much work for Kara to busy herself with. 

Snapper finds her forty minutes later, flicking rubber bands at Winn’s deserted computer set-up, a pile of mangled paperclips by her elbow, and promptly sends her downstairs to actually get on with her job. 

When she finally finds it, the storage room smells dank and is artificially bright. The shelves teeter precariously, overstuffed with boxes which in turn spill over with manuscripts. Nothing in here is valuable, really – all the properly delicate stuff is kept in more secure rooms where the temperature is controlled and access is restricted. 

Kara has been walking through these aisles for close to two hours now, peering at smudged index cards. She’s walked from 1500 to 1350 by the time she breaks for lunch, vision blurring from the squinting. 

She knows the copies of the Inisfallen manuscripts must be among these shelves, probably just misplaced – put back a few centuries out of date by some harried volunteer. 

If Lena Luthor would just pick up her phone, Kara feels like her job would be significantly easier. 

By lunchtime, Kara is missing Winn acutely. Usually, they would spend their breaks together at the café across the road from the library, where they would drink hot chocolate, inhale their food, complain at length about Snapper. Today, though, with Winn away and Snapper already on her case, Kara doesn’t dare leave the building for lunch. Instead, she picks at some leftovers from the staff fridge before wandering down the stairs, deeper into the library than she’s ever been before. 

Eventually, she finds a tiny room tucked away in the corner of the basement. It’s dark, even when she manages to find the light switch – the bulb is weak and stuttering. She makes a note to let Winn know about it once he’s back.

Kara is shocked to find that there are even more shelves lining the walls of this room than there are in the storage room upstairs, stacks of paper floor to ceiling. Kara stands frozen just inside the doorway at first, worried that any sudden movement will cause a breeze that will send papers tumbling all over. 

Kara holds her breath. She looks around, taking it all in, this cramped, claustrophobic space. The walls seem to be closing in on her, her lungs constricting, the room spinning. 

Kara inhales again. The walls stop moving. 

There’s a mess of recording equipment that’s been left in the middle of the room; microphone, headphones, tapes; all tangled wires. 

Intrigued, she takes the necessary three steps to reach it all, runs her fingers gently over the items gathering dust. She glances at her watch, sighs in relief when she sees there are still forty minutes of her lunch break left; forty minutes until Snapper sends some poor employee chasing after her. 

She sinks to the floor, puts the headphones over her ears. Presses play. 

\--  
You’ve reached Lena Luthor. Sorry I can’t get to the phone at the moment, leave a message and I’ll get back to you. 

Beep

Hey, Lena! I haven’t heard from you yet, obviously, but I just wanted to say I’ve found some of the audiobooks you were recording and they’re amazing! Like, I just think it’s such a good idea, you know? And I love some of the stories you’ve been reading, the Greek myths are some of my favourites actually, so…uh, good job? Sorry, anyway, I’m still having a little trouble finding some of the Inisfallen entries – Winn keeps saying you definitely had them? If you could call back, point me in the right direction, I’d really appreciate it. Thanks. Um, this is Kara, by the way. Sorry.  
\--

8th June;  
No one has noticed yet. These tapes are the only way I can keep track of myself, the only way I can know for sure what’s left of me, how quickly things are progressing. I don’t know if it’s real yet, or all in my mind. Either way, no one can know. Either way, these tapes will help me mark the way. My trail of breadcrumbs. 

\--

Over the next week, the weather improves and by Friday the sun is shining in earnest. Winn is back and they agree to go for drinks after work. The day is long and Snapper is extra snappy, so come six they’re both ready for some alcohol and greasy bar food.  
They enter the bar – some place Winn assures her is the hidden gem of National City. Very hidden, Kara thinks, glancing dubiously at the peeling paint of the bar, coughing in the smoky air. 

She settles in soon enough, with a heaped plate of loaded fries and a beer that has Winn gagging at her. 

She’s just telling Winn about how she keeps thinking she hears music playing in the basement when Winn spots a friend at the bar and waves him over, introducing him to Kara as James Olsen. Apparently he’s a photographer at Catco so Kara doesn’t know how she hasn’t met him before, but he smiles at her widely and is soon laughing loudly with them as they discuss their ideal karaoke songs and bond over Cat Grant’s loveably tyrannical ways (apparently the stapler she aimed at Kara’s head wasn’t the only piece of stationery she’s thrown in her time as Queen Of All Media).  
When the three of them decide to extend the evening with a round of pool and multiple rounds of drinks, Kara texts Alex who joins them halfway through a game in which Kara is losing embarrassingly to James. Luckily for her, Alex steps in just in time to salvage the game and claims the win on behalf of Team Danvers. 

Kara and Alex stumble through Alex’s door just after midnight falling all over each other to reach the bed first. Alex continues her winning streak and Kara is quickly exiled to the couch where she wakes up the next morning fully dressed, head pounding, with a phone full of texts from James and Winn already planning their next night out. Kara quickly puts in a vote for a karaoke bar and abandons her phone in favour of a big coffee, and a bigger stack of pancakes.  
\--  
You’ve reached Lena Luthor. Sorry I can’t get to the phone at the moment, leave a message and I’ll get back to you. 

Beep

Hi, Lena, it’s Kara again. Sorry I keep calling, you must think I’m some kind of stalker, huh? Promise I’m not! Uh, anyway, I’ve just found a couple of things here which I think might be yours? Um, there’s a hat – woollen, grey. It has a massive pom-pom on it. Like, seriously huge, how does it balance like that? Anyway, um, there’s also a scarf and a pair of gloves, with, uh, like, little chemical formulas on them? They’re really cute so if they’re not yours I might have to steal them. Sorry, uh…obviously I won’t do that! But, no one here really knows who they belong to? They all said they’re probably yours since it’s your desk. They were just in one of the drawers. Right at the back, sorry I didn’t see them earlier, it’s been a quiet day so I was snooping a bit I guess? Gosh, sorry, not like that! Just, um, you know, going through the desk, seeing what’s here. So, uh, I’ll leave them just there and you can swing by and grab them? Maybe let me know if you’re coming and you can show me some more of your stuff in the archives – it’s all amazing so far, even though I still can’t find some stuff. But you don’t have to! No pressure, you know? Just come by, get your gloves, I won’t force you to talk to me or anything if you don’t want to, I’m sure I can work it out myself. Eventually. Anyway, just thought you should know about the clothes in case you’re missing them in this weather. Uh, yeah, so…bye. 

\--

9th June;  
What is the self anyway? Will my mind fade with my body? It doesn’t feel like it at the moment but how can I know that I’m disappearing? Will I know when I’m gone?

\--

There’s one particular Wednesday that sticks in her mind. Kara stumbles into work, still regretting letting Alex talk her into that third round at the bar last night, and collapses almost sideways at her desk. The chair rolls back a good few inches with her momentum and Kara nearly vomits at the sudden motion. 

She hears snickering and cracks open an eyelid – just enough to see Winn suppressing his cackles with his palm pressed to his lips. 

Kara shuts her eye again, needing the darkness to soothe her pounding head, and growls low in her throat when the giggling continues. She takes a deep, fortifying breath in, and tastes fruit on the back of her tongue. 

Slowly, Kara opens her eyes, sniffing the air again. It’s a refreshing scent – peaches? There’s a cloud of the smell just around her desk, lingering. She glances at Winn who’s watching her sniff the air like a dog with a confused grin. 

‘Are you wearing perfume?’, she asks him. His incredulous eyebrow-raise answers her question for her. 

\--  
You’ve reached Lena Luthor. Sorry I can’t get to the phone at the moment, leave a message and I’ll get back to you. 

Beep

Lena. Hi. Um…I know it’s been a while since I called. I don’t even know if you’re getting any of my messages, really, but…well, I wanted to tell you, um…I found something? I was listening to the audiobooks – you just read them so nicely, I really love listening to you- them! Listening to them. And, um…well I found, like, a diary? I guess that’s what it is, anyway. It sounds pretty personal. I’m sorry I listened to any of it, you probably didn’t want people hearing it, huh? Anyway, sorry, I’ll try not to listen to anymore, I just didn’t realise what it was at first. So, I just thought you should know that they’re here – the tapes. And I’ll keep them safe for you, if you like, so they don’t get lost, and so no one else finds them. I hope…I hope you’re alright, Lena. Call me back? If you like! No pressure, but…well. Bye. 

\--

14th June;  
My left ear has disappeared. I only noticed this morning, as I stood in front of the mirror – it’s a habit now, to stare at myself every morning, for at least ten minutes. I like to track the fading. I like to check that I’m still here. The window was open still – the nights have been so hot lately – and the wind blew some hair into my face. I didn’t think anything of it, just pushed it behind my ear. But there was no ear. It’s strange though - I can still feel it, I can still hear. My hair stayed back. I wore headphones all day but didn’t listen to anything. 

\--

Come the end of Kara’s first full month working at the library, she feels settled for the first time in a long time. She and Alex are in a good place – sister’s night, game night, and Friday drinks working to bring them closer than they’ve been for months. 

Despite Snapper’s hostility, Kara enjoys her work, finds the history exciting, the stories fascinating. But she has a life outside of work as well. She has friends and calls her mom at least once a week. She googled the lyrics of one of the songs she heard playing from nowhere in the empty library basement and found that it was by ‘The Cranberries’. She tells herself she can’t be hallucinating actual music by a band she’s never heard of before. She doesn’t think much about it, except to enjoy more songs by them. When she plays her own music in the library, quietly, and only when she’s the last in the building, the other music stops playing, but sometimes it will be her own selections playing from nowhere the next time she’s down there. 

She doesn’t notice the formation of her new routine as it’s happening, only sees the shape of her week once it’s already cemented in her psyche. When she does take stock, it’s not the organised, structured evenings that take her by surprise, not the satisfaction she takes in her work that gives her pause. Instead, her hesitation comes from the quiet moments, the ways in which she finds herself filling the empty spaces in her schedule. 

It happens organically, so naturally she isn’t sure she remembers exactly how it started. Only, she must have stayed late one night, Eliza having postponed their weekly call, or held up by the frustrating lagging of the early 2000s computer system. She thinks she was bored, maybe, or perhaps looking, once again, for those missing pages, and she found herself back in that tiny, dank basement room. 

The tapes were still there – she’d arranged them neatly into chronological order of recording, earliest to most recent, and tucked them all into a gap in one of the bottom-most shelves. 

She knows that she spent over an hour down there, listening to the tapes, absorbing the stories of the Greek myths. She knows she’d completely lost track of time and missed Eliza’s call, having to rush home, panting as she called her mother back. 

The next week, it had been Kara who’d asked to make the call with Eliza a little later, citing excess work. Instead, she’d found herself back in the basement, headphones on. 

After that, she’d moved her weekly call with Eliza to Sunday mornings and found herself almost religiously listening to the tapes on Thursday nights. 

There’s a certain contentment she feels, curled up against the wall, headphones blocking out the noises around her, eyes closed as she listens only to the voice in her head. On Thursday nights she breathes more deeply, feels fuller, somehow. 

She asked Winn about the tapes but he didn’t seem to know much – was basically uninterested. 

Kara has never been more simultaneously grateful for and frustrated with someone’s indifference. 

It’s the mystery that’s her undoing, she thinks. The unknown has always fascinated her, and the amount of uncertainty around not just the tapes, but the woman herself makes the whole thing an almost instant obsession for Kara. 

She’s always been interested in the truth, in digging down, discovering things previously unknown, unproven. 

So the minute she finds those abandoned tapes, that tangled recording equipment, she knows this is going to be her new hobby. But it’s not until she begins listening to the tapes regularly, hears the voice on them and realises who it belongs to, that Lena and her tapes begin to take up daily residence in Kara’s brain. 

The voice is nice to listen to in its own right, she thinks, though ‘nice’ isn’t really a strong enough word to describe it. It’s like Kara’s stumbled upon a particularly catchy song, one that perfectly fits her recent mood, externalises her previously supressed emotions, a song she plays on repeat, repeat, repeat, constantly.

Unusually, though, she doesn’t find herself getting sick of Lena’s voice, like she might with a catchy song. In fact, the more she listens to the tapes, to the words and the voice speaking them, the more she likes it. 

Quickly, Kara finds herself halfway through the tapes, having binged them almost all at once, sitting in that damp basement in the dark. 

The tapes had been labelled messily with sharpie – dates ranging from early April to mid June – along with a number of undated ones, all haphazardly thrown together. 

So, as per her new routine, Kara spends every Thursday night listening to Lena Luthor’s audiobooks. She works her way through them in order, from those recorded in early April, and finishes multiple each evening, staying at the library into the early hours of the mornings, until, one evening, she reaches for the first tape recorded in June.

The tape begins as usual; Lena’s voice introducing the story she is about to tell, making a couple of comments on the history, the different variations that exist, and then, mid-sentence, the audio crackles, skips, goes silent for a moment. 

The staticky silence jars Kara enough that she’s about to remove her headphones to check what’s going on, when she hears Lena start speaking again. Her voice sounds different now though, softer, and closer to the mic. Lena begins speaking again and the story she tells isn’t like any myth Kara has heard before. 

She listens to enough to know that Lena stopped recording the official audiobooks in early June; that from the beginning of the month, Lena had started using the recording equipment to dictate her own story. Kara discovers that some, though not all, the tapes labelled June cut out mid-way and become something like Lena’s personal diary. The tapes without any label at all don’t contain any attempt to record stories for the library database – they begin and end with Lena’s soft, shaking voice, whispering secrets into the static. Kara stops listening quickly, as soon as she can bare to tear herself away, knowing only that she doesn’t know even close to enough to satisfy her curiosity, but that whatever story Lena was telling was one of the most interesting things Kara has ever heard. 

Suddenly, Kara can think of nothing else. 

The more she’s been listening to Lena’s recordings, the more she wants to hear them again, already thinking about replaying them, even as she was still finding new tapes to reach for. Now though, she goes back to the beginning of the official audiobooks, plays one tape after another, April through May, devouring them, soaking in the deep, melodic rhythm of Lena’s voice. Even from just those two months there are a lot of them; Lena was prolific. 

It’s different from listening to her voicemail message, but recognisable nonetheless. 

Kara worries, too, about what she heard on the other tapes, the personal ones. From the little she allowed herself to listen to, it sounds like Lena was quite unwell, was worried. She sounded scared, almost. But Kara doesn’t want to pry. It’s not her business. So she contents herself with the official recordings, the stories of Persephone and Cerberus and Achilles. 

She wakes up sometimes, still wondering about Lena, about how she’s doing now, where she is. 

Her dreams are full of faceless strangers. 

\--  
You’ve reached Lena Luthor. Sorry I can’t get to the phone at the moment, leave a message and I’ll get back to you. 

Beep

I finished listening to the audiobooks – only the official ones, don’t worry! But, gosh, um, I just think it’s so silly that they made you stop. They’re amazing, and it’s such a good idea – to make all these amazing manuscripts available to the public without risking anyone touching the delicate ones. And it’s so important to improve accessibility! Blind people, people who can’t get to the library, just…anyone who’s interested in all these incredible things we’ve got lying around! They’re part of history, Lena, and everyone should be able to learn from them. You were doing such a good job, reading them, recording them, sharing them with everyone, with the public, the world. I was listening, Lena. I know they said no one was listening to them, but Lena, I was. I love them. I’m so glad you recorded the ones you did, you’ve really made me want to learn more about them, you made them so interesting. I was so into the Cupid and Psyche one I missed the end of my lunch break and got told off by Snapper! I just…I wanted to say I that heard them. I heard you. Thank you. 

\--

16th June;  
When I go into work now, I wear layers. In this heat, it’s stifling. I can feel the sweat dripping down my back, pooling, drying, itching. Winn has started giving me strange looks. When he asks about it, I just tell him I’m cold, maybe I’m coming down with something. He watches me, sees the beads of sweat running down my face, no doubt, but he hasn’t pushed it so far. Just accepts my strangeness. He’s been kind to me. I suppose I’ll miss him. 

\--

Kara begins her investigation by asking around the library about Lena Luthor. No one can really tell her anything, and Winn has begun to look at her weirdly out of the corner of his eye. 

He teases her about having a crush on a disembodied voice, but it’s not that. Obviously, she’s not crushing on anyone, and definitely not on their voice! She’s just intrigued is all. Everything about the recordings is fascinating to her.

She’s never heard a voice like Lena’s before. She’s never heard anyone tell stories like Lena does, the way she weaves the words together so that they run over Kara like silk.  
And besides, ‘Isn’t it strange,’ she asks Winn, ‘that they just stop?’

‘No,’ he counters, ‘Snapper made her stop. No one was listening to them, they were just taking up space on the database.’

He does agree, finally, that it’s a bit weird that she just disappeared. He had never spent much time with Lena outside the library, he said, and Kara notices he gets a strange look in his eye, part wary, part wistful. 

After some pressing, Winn admits that they’d been almost close at one point, until Lena started pulling back on their friendship, pushing him away, keeping to herself. And then, one day, she’d just lost it, started yelling at him after he’d just tried to say hello. She’d seemed so angry, and it had been a while by that point since they’d really even been ‘work friends’, that he’d left her alone after that. And then, without him knowing anything about it, she’d just suddenly disappeared. 

‘Suddenly?’ Kara askes him, on the edge of her seat.

‘Yeah,’ Winn says, looking almost engaged for the first time since Kara first started asking about Lena Luthor, ‘she just never came back to work one day. She didn’t quit, wasn’t fired – at least, at first - she just left and never came back. Weird,’ Winn says.

‘Hm,’ Kara can only agree quietly, settling back into her chair, beginning to breathe again, ‘Weird.’

\--  
You’ve reached Lena Luthor. Sorry I can’t get to the phone at the moment, leave a message and I’ll get back to you. 

Beep

Hi, Lena, it’s Kara Danvers again. Everyone’s kind of worried about you. I mean, they all say you kind of kept to yourself when you worked here but, no one has heard from you since you left. None of them know where you are, Lena. Are you okay? Can I do anything? Call me, if you can. 

\--

19th June;  
My edges are still shaky, like static almost, but I don’t seem to be fading inwards. I’m just…part of reality. It was hard to see sometimes, at the beginning, if I only glanced at it, but I’m always aware of it now. I’m like a cartoon character with no outlines. My right knee has gone now too, but luckily my usual jeans hide that well enough. 

\--

A couple of times, Kara comes back from the bathroom or lunch to find her desk just slightly rearranged – pens straightened, crumbs cleared away, post-its stacked neatly. She never sees anyone doing it, no one even pauses by her desk on their way past when she watches through the bookshelves sometimes. Once, she returned from a search of the store room to find a blueberry muffin sitting next to her keyboard. When she asked Winn about it, he denied any knowledge of it but suggested, with a teasing glint in his eye, that she must have a secret admirer. Kara had shoved him playfully, glanced around furtively a few times, and taken a huge bite out of the muffin; no amount of confusion was going to make her turn down free food. 

Kara stops asking Winn about Lena, and she begins hiding her call history from Alex, who’s always asking what she’s doing on her phone, why she’s always glancing at it. Who is she waiting on a call from? 

There’s something missing.

Where before, Kara had been feeling content in her new job, with her new friends, now she feels restless again. She can sense the beginning of a hollowness in her chest, the itchy beginnings of a crack in her breastbone.

She doesn’t know what’s causing it but she doesn’t tell anyone about it. 

She starts replaying Lena’s recordings from the beginning, yet again, and that helps a little. 

\--  
You’ve reached Lena Luthor. Sorry I can’t get to the phone at the moment, leave a message and I’ll get back to you. 

Beep

I’ve listened to them all again. Your voice is just…it’s so soothing. Sorry, that’s probably really weird of me to say. But it’s true. 

\--

21st June;  
My right leg, down to my ankle, and spreading through my foot to three of my toes. 

23rd June;  
I think it’s speeding up. I woke up this morning like swiss cheese. Covered in tiny holes. Little gaps where more of me has fallen out. Is it a process of dissolving? It doesn’t feel as fizzy as I imagined it might. Perhaps sublimation?

\--

Sometimes the air around her desk smells of peach and lemongrass. 

\--

You’ve reached Lena Luthor. Sorry I can’t get to the phone at the moment, leave a message and I’ll get back to you. 

Beep

Icarus is incredible, but I think my favourite is Cupid and Psyche. I keep listening to it, over and over, I can’t stop. I fell asleep to it last night, and the night before. My sister says it’s compulsive but I don’t want to stop. It helps me sleep. I want to dream about Cupid and Persephone and Prometheus’ fire, and you…your voice is in my dreams Lena. 

\--

28th June;  
The gap at my hip met the space of my leg overnight. What will I do when I’m totally gone? I’m starting a list: one, escape. But to where? That’s something to work on, I suppose, while I still have time. 

30th June;  
Look, the irony isn’t lost on me. I’m well aware I must have wished just a little too hard for anonymity all those months ago…years? Time flies when there’s nothing to mark it passing.

\--

Alex finds the audiobooks. 

Kara had taken them home, hidden them in the chest of drawers by her bed, listened to them on loop, on loop, on loop. 

She could have just found them online, on the library’s website, like she’s supposed to. Afterall, they’ve not been taken down, but somehow Lena’s voice sounds better on the tapes. She sounds closer, almost like she’s standing in the room, right next to Kara’s bed where she lies, headphones in, eyes closed. 

Kara presses the headphones as close to her ears as she can and holds them there, wants Lena’s voice closer, enveloping her, inside her. 

The voice on the website had sounded distant, colder almost, so Kara sneaks the tapes out of the library and doesn’t think to feel guilty about the theft.

(She’ll return them, eventually. Just not yet.)

Alex finds the audiobooks and she takes them away. She’s oddly convinced that there’s something unhealthy about Kara’s fascination with them. She seems to think that Kara’s been quiet lately, not answering texts as quickly as usual. Kara tells her she’s imagining things, but Alex insists that she’s not, that Kara’s in denial, that Alex knows her. And anyway, Kara could get fired for taking the tapes without permission, it’s best to return them, quietly, no one will ever know, in fact, Alex will do it herself so Kara doesn’t have to worry. 

Kara spends three weeks feeling like there’s a bubble separating her from the world outside. Everything is muffled, quiet, dull. 

The gnawing ache behind her ribs grows and grows and grows.

In the second week, she develops a headache that won’t go away. She hasn’t felt so alone since she was ten years old, before she moved in with the Danvers.  
At the end of the third week, Kara finds herself back in the basement of the library, unlocking the drawers she bolted shut months ago, almost unconsciously. 

She doesn’t know what she’s doing, she just knows there’s something she needs, desperately, to quell the aching. 

\--

You’ve reached Lena Luthor. Sorry I can’t get to the phone at the moment, leave a message and I’ll get back to you. 

Beep

I’m sorry. I listened to the tapes. The personal ones. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. Well, I did, but I just…I’d run out of your audiobooks and I just needed…something. I’m so sorry, I know it’s such a violation! I’m sorry. Can you forgive me? 

\--

4th July;  
The best thing about the library is that no one cares who I am, or rather who I was. I’ve been living like I’m dead already anyway, now I’ll just look the part too. A proper ghost. 

9th July;  
My left shoulder down to the elbow. The inside of my right wrist and the third knuckle on both hands. 

\--

The guilt is crushing. 

The story on the tapes is stranger than she could ever have guessed it would be.

Lena had been in such pain. She had been all alone. 

The guilt is crushing.

Kara goes another month without hearing Lena’s voice. 

\--  
You’ve reached Lena Luthor. Sorry I can’t get to the phone at the moment, leave a message and I’ll get back to you. 

Beep

I just needed to hear your voice, Lena. 

\--  
18th July;  
Are my organs going with my limbs? They aren’t disappearing yet, I’m still solid so far. What if I start to fade completely? Will my heart stop, or will it just disappear with the rest of me?

\--

She can’t help it. She dials and re-dials Lena’s number just to hear the voicemail message. Most times, she hangs up before the beep. But sometimes, she thinks back to what she heard when she listened to Lena’s diary, and she wonders. 

\--  
You’ve reached Lena Luthor. Sorry I can’t get to the phone at the moment, leave a message and I’ll get back to you. 

Beep

Please, Lena. Please call me back. 

\--

19th July;  
My heart is still beating. I can hear it pounding sometimes, when I look in the mirror, when I glance at all my gaps, when my sleeves ride up as I move. At least I’m still alive. I think. 

\--

One Monday, Kara is eating chips at her desk, scrolling mindlessly around an ancient browser, when she reaches, without looking, for her paperclip chain to fiddle with, and comes up empty. She looks, turns the computer screen to search behind it. There’s no doubt they were there before her lunch break, she had been trying to create some sort of bird but had ended up accepting that her artistic abilities were limited to snake and worm-like creatures. 

She rolls back on her chair and ducks under her desk to search the floor, still finding nothing. Frowning, she resigns herself to starting again on a new and improved limbless paperclip structure, but when she opens her drawer for more paperclips, she is confronted by a pile of them arranged into a rough sphere, rolling towards her. 

Kara stares at the ball, perplexed. Wonders why anyone would go to the trouble of rearranging her stationery in such an impressive way and then hiding it back in her desk. She knows it wasn’t Winn; he was with her at lunch, but there’s no one else in the office she’s friendly enough with that they might reasonably do something like this. 

She reaches slowly for the paperclips, lifting the structure as gently as she can, feeling its fragility in her palm. She brings it close to her face, smiling gently almost without realising she’s doing it. She presses her lips to the cool metal, just feeling the chill against her skin. 

‘What the hell are you doing?’

Kara jumps, eyes flying open, and drops the ball, watches in something like horror as it falls, hits the edge of her desk before reaching the floor and breaking into pieces. 

‘Crap. Sorry. Are you alright?’

‘Oh for- um, sorry, yeah, I’m fine, Winn, you just scared me.’ Kara stutters, swallowing against a wave of irrational frustration as she gazes at the paperclips now strewn across the floor around her feet in groups of threes and fours. 

Winn goes to start picking them up but she stops him quickly with a hand on his shoulder, and sends him back to his own desk. She sits back in her chair, makes no move to gather the mess around her feet, just stares at them, shining under the artificial light of the office bulbs. 

\--

You’ve reached Lena Luthor. Sorry I can’t get to the phone at the moment, leave a message and I’ll get back to you. 

Beep

I know you’re still here. I can feel you sometimes, I think. The hat and scarf are gone from my desk, but the gloves are still there. Were you here, Lena? Did you come after we closed? How did you get in? Or were you here during the day? Were you in the building with me? Did you see me at your desk, Lena? You could have come to me. I’d love to speak to you. I promise I’m friendly. I just want to talk, Lena. I’d love to meet you, to get to know you. I feel like I know you already, from the tapes. That’s probably awful, and not true at all. You’re so much more than what’s on those tapes, Lena. You’re incredible, I can tell, just from your voice, just from the screwed up post-its I found in the bin when I started here. I’ve still got the pens you left, and the paperclips. And you left the gloves, Lena. Why did you do that? Are they for me? Did you leave them for me, Lena, because I said I liked the formulas on them? I love them, Lena. They’re so soft. Warm. They’re a little small on me, but I like them that way – I can feel them all over. 

\--

25th July;  
Winn almost saw today. He came up behind me and tried to pull my scarf off. He was laughing, it was meant to be a joke. Plus, I think he might be worried about me. I suppose it’s natural that he’d be curious about what’s going on with me. I know I’ve been speaking to him even less than usual since this all began. And I know I look strange, sitting at my desk in woolly hats and scarves and gloves in July. Sweating.

\--

Kara has stopped going to game night. She’s started cancelling her nights with Alex. She is constantly looking behind her, searching crowds for a face she doesn’t know. 

Alex comes over unannounced and yells at her. 

\--  
You’ve reached Lena Luthor. Sorry I can’t get to the phone at the moment, leave a message and I’ll get back to you. 

Beep

Alex said I needed to stop calling. She said I was obsessed. She’s worried about me, I can tell. And I tried, Lena. I really tried to stop. I don’t like to worry her, she’s always been so protective of me, and I don’t mean to stress her out. And…I don’t want to annoy you, or upset you, Lena. You never answer, you never speak to me, so I don’t know if you want me to stop? But Lena, I tried. I promise I tried to stop, but I can’t. It’s like I need your voice to breathe right. My heart goes and goes and goes, faster and faster the longer I’m not listening to your voice, and everything is closing in on me, and my chest gets tighter and tighter and tighter. But then…I hear you, and I can breathe again. I can finally relax. I’m still wearing your gloves. 

\--

29th July;  
I have a plan, sort of. I’m going to leave soon. Well…not leave; I’ll disappear, on my own terms, before it’s out of my control. It’s lucky, I suppose, that there’s no one to miss me really. I don’t want to have to explain this to anyone. I can’t even explain it to myself. 

\--

Kara listens to the personal tapes again. 

Alex never gave her back the audiobooks, might have returned them already, or hidden them altogether, and Kara had found she couldn’t remember every word Lena had said, the memory of her cadence fading. 

The second time around, Kara is better prepared. She knows what she’s listening to, knows what to listen for. She pieces together what Lena leaves out and it seems crazy, absurd, impossible. 

But…

Kara has always believed beyond herself, and she has hope that Lena will let her in if only Kara proves she can be trusted. 

Her desk still smells of peach and lemongrass. 

\--

You’ve reached Lena Luthor. Sorry I can’t get to the phone at the moment, leave a message and I’ll get back to you. 

Beep

Lena. I don’t care. I know what you said on those tapes. I know what happened to you, I think, but I don’t care. I’m not scared, Lena, and you don’t have to be either. I’m here, Lena, whenever you’re ready. Please, just trust me. Just for a minute. You can trust me. I’m not scared. I want to help you. Please. 

\--

31st July;  
Winn hasn’t been speaking to me. Every time we’re at our desks together he’s got his earphones in. Sometimes I think I can see him in my peripheries, watching me when I’m not looking back, but whenever I turn to him he’s back to staring at his computer. He won’t make eye contact. I don’t blame him, after the way I yelled at him. It’s probably for the best, anyway. I’ll be gone soon, and I don’t need Winn wondering about me. It’s best I disappear while he can still see it, so to speak. Anything else is too hard to explain. 

\--

It takes a couple of days. Evenings where Kara stays late in the library, sitting at her desk with the lights off, even when everyone else in the building is long gone. 

It takes a couple of days where Kara sits at her desk, stone still, waiting. 

But Kara has waited this long, is used to waiting, has been waiting for impossible things all her life, she can wait a bit longer. 

\--

You’ve reached Lena Luthor. Sorry I can’t get to the phone at the moment, leave a message and I’ll get back to you. 

Beep

You’re here. I can feel you, for sure this time. I waited for you, you know. That’s why I’m still here so late. Everyone’s gone home, Lena. It’s just us now. It’s okay, Lena, there’s no one else here now. Are you near? Can you see me? Can you feel me? I want to feel you, Lena. Please, come closer. Just a little closer. I won’t look if you don’t want me to. Look, I’ve shut my eyes, I’m facing my computer, I won’t turn around. Lena. Is that you? Oh my God. Lena. You’re here. You’re so warm. I can feel you behind me, your breath on my neck. So warm. God. Are you there? Please stay. Will you touch me, Lena? Just a little, so I know you’re here…just—


End file.
